The stations share studios on East Division Street in Springfield, while KOZL-TV's transmitter is located on Switchgrass Road, north of Fordland.

The station first signed on the air in 1968 as KMTC; founded by Meyer Communications, it originally operated as the market's first full-time ABC affiliate.

The following month, TV syndicator Telepictures, who had recently purchased cross-town independent KSPR (channel 33), attempted to persuade ABC to make an affiliation agreement via a presentation to the network.

Banam sold KDEB along with three of its stations (WTVW in Evansville, Indiana, KARD in West Monroe, Louisiana, and KLBK-TV in Lubbock, Texas) to Petracom Broadcasting in 1995.

On November 30, 2001, the station's 1,560-foot (480 m)-tall broadcast tower (which it shared with KTXR (101.3 FM)) collapsed as a result of overnight ice accumulation.

The station was one of many Fox affiliates that planned to decline to air O. J. Simpson's two-night interview special with Judith Regan on November 27 and 29, 2006 called If I Did It.

[4] On June 20, 2011, Fox announced that it would end its affiliation with KSFX and sister station WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

[9] With the change, KOZL began filling prime time hours formerly occupied by Fox network programming with syndicated programming (initially, the newsmagazines Inside Edition and The Insider, along with the sitcoms My Name Is Earl and Everybody Loves Raymond on weeknights), along with family-oriented movies on Sunday nights.

On September 10, 2012, KOZL changed its on-air branding to "Z-27", using a logo similar to that used by sister stations WCIX in Springfield, Illinois, and KARZ-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When channel 27 became an independent station on September 1, 2011, the newly called KOZL expanded its locally produced programming; the morning newscast expanded to two hours from 7 to 9 a.m. On September 4, KOZL debuted a half-hour 6 p.m. newscast on Sundays (it was the only newscast in the market at that timeslot as KOLR as well as KYTV and KSPR carry network prime time programming during that hour); then on September 6, KOZL debuted an hour-long weekday 4 p.m. news/lifestyle program, titled Ozarks Live.